Mary Mitchell O'Connor (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Section 16 provides that academic staff shall form the majority of the academic council of a technological university. Subsection (2) provides the governing body of each technological university, including its student members, with the flexibility to decide for itself the overall number of members the academic council should have, including the number of students. This is in line with the legislation applying to universities. Section 28(1)(c) of the Universities Act 1997 provides that the composition of the academic council should include an appropriate number of students. I do not propose to move away from this standard wording as it would put technological universities in a different position from that of other universities.

The Bill also amends section 10 of the Regional Technical Colleges Act 1992 and section 2 of the Dublin Institute of Technology Act 1992 to mirror the wording of the provisions of the Universities Act 1997 to provide for uniformity across the sector. The governing body makes regulations to provide for the number of members of the academic council of the technological university and the procedures for selection and appointment. As the governing body will include student members, I do not envisage a situation where a governing body which includes, among others, representatives of the student body of the technological university will not include students on the academic council.

On the cited Prague Communiqué of 2001 and the broader Bologna Process of voluntary higher education reform at European level, the process highlights the importance of involving students as partners in higher education governance and seeks to ensure legislation will guarantee student representation. I am committed to these principles and that is what we are doing in the Bill. However, I do not consider it appropriate to enshrine in primary legislation that a particular fraction of the membership of the academic council should be students.